Cops, Feds, Pipeline Companies – Get Out of
Indian Lands!

Hands Off Standing Rock Sioux!

Cops attack demonstrators protesting Dakota Access Pipeline at
Standing Rock Indian Reservation on November 20, blasting them
with water cannon in sub-freezing weather. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/StarTribune
[Minneapolis])

DECEMBER 4 – In a significant (but perhaps
temporary) victory for the Native American and other
protesters at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and their
supporters elsewhere, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today
announced it would not grant an easement (permission to build)
for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to cross the Missouri
River at the Reservation. Instead, it said the builders should
“explore alternative routes” – which Energy Transfer Partners
(ETP), the main owner of the DAPL, has refused to do.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has opposed the Missouri River
crossing at that site as endangering water supplies and
violating Indian land rights. The pipeline was originally
planned to cross the Missouri north of the state capital of
Bismarck, but when politicians objected, the route was moved
south to cross at Standing Rock in a blatant case of
environmental racism. In response, thousands of Native
Americans (including representatives of more than 300 tribes)
and others have traveled to the reservation to support the
“water protectors.”

The federal action may stop the pipeline for now, but the
battle is far from over. Many protesters and tribal leaders
focused on pressuring the Obama administration into blocking
the pipeline crossing. But ETP has powerful support not only
from North Dakota’s Republican government, which is entirely
in the pocket of the oil companies, but also from putative
president-elect Donald Trump, who is an investor in the DAPL
and has called for it to be built at that site. A new
administration in Washington next January could easily reverse
the Army Corps of Engineers ruling.

Colorado River Indians, joining with 300
tribes, delcare their solidarity with the Standing Rock
Sioux, September 3.
(Robyn Beck/AFP)

Moreover, there could still be a confrontation at the
construction site on December 5 or in coming days as police
have threatened to arrest anyone who crosses a bridge. Local
police have been openly racist, calling the Indian protesters
“evil” for violating sacrosanct private “property rights” of
the pipeline company – on land which was granted to the Sioux
in an 1851 treaty and subsequently stolen from them.

State and local police and sheriffs deputies from as far away
as Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio have
participated in the brutal cop attacks on the Standing Rock
protesters. In opposition to the vicious repression, hundreds
of veterans from across the country are presently gathering to
“take a stand with Standing Rock.”

While liberals, environmental activists and many leftists
have opposed the pipeline as such, meaning that much of North
Dakota oil would continue to be shipped by rail which is far
more dangerous, the Internationalist Group has taken the
position of supporting the Standing Rock Sioux – and
solidarizing with their courageous resistance to the forces of
racist repression – in opposing the construction of the
pipeline at the reservation as an attack on Native American
rights.

Internationalist Group at November 3 demonstration in Los
Angeles protesting attempt to run pipeline
through Standing Rock Indian Reservation,
potentially endangering water supply and violating Native
American rights. (Internationalist
photo)

At a November 3 protest in Los Angeles, IG signs called for:
“Hands Off Standing Rock Sioux,” “Cops, Feds, Pipeline
Companies – Get Out of Indian Lands!” and “Pipeline? Run It
Thru the Golf Courses of N.D. Power Elites!” We also demand
that all charges be dropped against the more than 500
protesters who have been arrested during the course of the
struggle. ■